Exercise 1_2_3: Statistical Software Files

In this set of exercises, we will work with files from statistical software. The first tasks are about importing data, while the later ones are about labelling and exporting.

1

Import the .sav version of the data from the German General Social Survey - ALLBUS 2021.

Clues

You need the haven package for this. The file should be stored in the data folder.

solution

library(haven)

allbus_2021 <- read_dta("./data/allbus_2021/ZA5280_v1-0-0.dta")

Unlike in flat files, such as CSV, the variables now have labels.

2

Print the labels of the first ten variables in the data set.

Clues

You can use a function from the sjlabelled package for this. Remember that you can use [ ] ro subset columns/variables (we only want to print the labels for the first ten variables).

solution

library(sjlabelled)

get_label(allbus_2021[1:10])

##                                      za_nr                                        doi                                    version 
##                            "STUDIENNUMMER"                "DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER"                                  "RELEASE" 
##                                     respid                                   substudy                                       mode 
##      "IDENTIFIKATIONSNUMMER DES BEFRAGTEN"                               "TEILSTUDIE" "ERHEBUNGSMODUS DER ALLBUS-HAUPTBEFRAGUNG" 
##                                     splt21                                   eastwest                                     german 
##            "FRAGEBOGENSPLIT (A, B ODER C)" "ERHEBUNGSGEBIET (WOHNGEBIET): WEST - OST"           "DEUTSCHE STAATSANGEHOERIGKEIT?" 
##                                       ep01 
##     "WIRTSCHAFTSLAGE IN DEUTSCHLAND HEUTE"

Unfortunately, it’s all in German. Imagine you are a political scientist working on a publication in English, and you are interested in the variable pa01 (left-right self-placement). So you may want to consider translating the variable into English.

3

Change the variable label of pa01 from “LINKS-RECHTS-SELBSTEINSTUFUNG, BEFR.” to “left-right self-placement”.

Clues

You can, again, use a function from sjlabelled for this.

solution

allbus_2021$pa01 <- 
  set_label(
    allbus_2021$pa01, 
    label = "left-right self-placement"
  )
get_label(allbus_2021$pa01)

## [1] "left-right self-placement"

Your collaborators ask you to share the data after changing labels and stuff. Unfortunately, they do not use R or SPSS and, hence, asks you to export your data as a Stata file.

4

Export your data as a Stata file.

Clues

The haven package provides a function for writing such files that is called and works in a similar way as the corresponding function for importing data in this particular format.

solution

write_stata(gp_covid, "Allbus_STATA_format.dta")